The upside of today’s technological advances is obvious. So, increasingly, is the downside as cyberattacks increase in number, scope, and sophistication. Note last year’s WannaCrypt ransomware attacks affecting hospitals, utilities, railways, telecommunications, and automobile companies in at least 150 countries.

Katherine Charlet has dealt with the threat at the highest levels, serving as the Defense Department’s acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy and now as program director for technology and international affairs at the Washington, D.C.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She works primarily on the security and international implications of evolving technologies with a focus on cybersecurity and cyber conflict, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence.

Charlet discusses this critical issue – what kind of behavior in cyberspace would be globally destabilizing and what can be done to prevent it. The event is co-presented by the International Relations Council, a non-partisan Kansas City organization that offers educational programming on world affairs.